Savage No. 2 -- Finished with pics!!!

We took Stacy's Savage over to her moms and I could tell she mighta been a little jealous... Haha! She even took it for a spin and seemed to enjoy it. On the drive home it was decided that I'd build up another old ladies bike for her mom. The more I got to thinking about it, the more I liked the idea of finding another Savage (or identical HP Snyder frame) so they'd have almost the same bike. So the search was on!!

I found a frame on eBay, however it wasnt listed as a Savage. It didn't have the cool Savage head badge, but everything about the frame was identical to Stacy's Savage. Even the mark from where the head badge had been was the same diameter. When I first got Stacy's Savage, it was about 75% complete bike and all the little parts were there. This frame did come with a complete skip-tooth sprocket/dog-leg crank and bottom bracket, so I'm thankful for that. But NOTHIG else... Once again, the search is on. I've been collecting parts now for a few weeks and I'm getting there:

The bike will be painted "Guards Red" (Porsche color). Its a gorgeous bright red. With the creme wheels and some creme accents, it'll be real nice. Now I need to get to stripping, sand blasting and mocking it up. The chain guard and fenders will need some love to fit nicely to this frame.

The frame came with only one head tube bearing cup :x... If anyone has a set of bearing cups with bearings, please let me know. I have about five spare cups, but not two are alike, so I can't make a set.

The serial number on this one is far different from Stacy's. I was told Stacy's is most likely a 1940... So should I assume this one is either 1943 or 1934? Hope rms37 chimes in here 8)

OK, so she's a quilt maker in her spare time. She makes some very beautiful quilts. After seeing the amazing head tube badges that "jezusjones" was creating, I thought I'd enlist him to do a custom badge for this build. Its not like Savage head badges are stocked at my LBS either.....

She takes trips with her friends who also quilt, and they always call it "Stitch & Bxtch" (you get it.. the forum wont accept that word ). So anyway, I couldn't be more impressed with the badge we came up with. Here it is:

if the sprocket has an even number of teeth then you can grind down every other one and make it look like a skiptooth to match the last build you did.

also did you paint the headbadge? if you did, how did you do it so perfectly?

Click to expand...

Thank you

I'm going to use a regular chain on this one. The sweetheart sprocket is 46 teeth, and the Nirve wheels I got already have a regular 22 teeth cog on the hub, so I guess I could grind off every other one. Maybe on another build...

Hi, Snyder began using the two line pattern of serial numbers in 1940. Earlier bikes have serial numbers that follow several different patterns and have not lent themselves to any obvious decoding. The frame style like this bike and your Savage was introduced at about the end of 1937. Earlier versions were similar except they used straight seat stays instead of arched ones. Based on those two facts I would peg the bike as a 1938 or 1939 Snyder built girl’s bike. Most of the Snyder/Harris bikes used the same oval badge blank with different etched graphics so this bike may have originally been any one of those, possibly a Savage but more likely given the odds, something else.

Got the new Nirve front rim delivered to my doorstep last night. It has the larger diameter axle bolt. Not a big deal... I'lll just open up the fork slots to accomidate that.

Heres the other issue... The hub is obviously wider than hubs were back in the 30's. I had to spread the forks out about 1/4" to clear the hub. My concern is, that pressure may cause the forks to bend in one direction or possibly crack or break. I could shave off 1/16" or so on the insides of the fork "dropout" to free up some clearance. I wouldn't want to go to much with that though.

I'm sure someone here has ran into this same issue. What was the resolve for you??

HELP!!!
I need headset cups for this frame. I only have one!!! The seller shipped only one with the frame. Now he's not responding to my emails to get the other cup. It was there in the pics before I bought the frame. Now I have to get this thing going. I have a Christmas deadline. I don't know the differences between head tube sizes through the years. ??? If anyone can help, I really could use it.

Had some time to work on this thing. Strippin the old paint off was a bear!! Although, under the red house paint, there was some cool original blue enamel with white scallops. I should've taken pics, but I was knee deep in paint stripper and had sand blasting on my mind!! The bare metal revealed a lifetime of wear and tear to this old frame. Both side seat stays were cracked and the lower frame tube was split. The drop outs were the worst. I cut the upper portion almost all the way through and tapped it back down into position, then filled the pie shaped opening with weld. When it all looked good, I fit the new rim in there and there was way too much slop up and down with the axle in the drop out. Ended up building it up with weld and smoothing it out so the axle only had very little play. I'm happy with it.

Next up was to shorten the steer tube on the fork. It was about 1-1/4" too long. The tricky part was making sure to weld it back together STRAIGHT!! When I mocked it up, it turned freely so I guess its straight.

The fork on the left is bent real bad. I was using it as a measurement reference.

Mounting the unknown chain guard. Had to clearance the bearing cup just a bit to stay clear of the bolt head. That hole in the bottom bracket is threaded and the bolt will be "lock tited" in so it wont spin while removing the nut if the guard ever needs removed while the cranks are still in.

These chain tensioners where made out of 6mm pan head bolts with the head cut off and replaced with a stainless steel cap nut. The ends were turned down in a lathe. Just like Stacy's Savage, the threads in the frame were ancient and no longer exist, so it was rethreaded for 6mm.

New mounting holes had to be put into the rear fender to fit this frame properly. These fenders came off a 50s Roadmaster. Check out the cool stamping!

Old silver dinner fork turned coaster brake bracket!! Nice!

Sanding off some surface rust that accumulated while it was bare metal. Almost ready for prime & paint!!!